How to recover deleted WhatsApp messages

How to get your WhatsApp messages back from an iPhone

With over a billion users, WhatsApp is one of the most globally popular messaging apps. As with any other data on your iPhone, WhatsApp chats are important, and losing them can be a pain. iPhone Backup Extractor can undelete WhatsApp conversations from all iOS devices. Here's how to get your lost data back in few steps, if you’ve lost your iPhone or accidentally deleted WhatsApp messages.

WhatsApp messages can be recovered from an iPhone in 4 steps:

Download and install iPhone Backup Extractor

Find a suitable iTunes or iCloud backup

Use iPhone Backup Extractor to recover the messages

Easy!

What can be recovered

Messages

Photos

Videos

Recover lost messages from WhatsApp

You'll need

A Windows PC or Mac

An iCloud backup and credentials

Or an iTunes backup

iPhone Backup Extractor

Finding saved WhatsApp chats

WhatsApp conversations aren't stored on WhatsApp's servers, so it's not possible to restore them directly from the app itself. The good news is that your iPhone has likely already saved your WhatsApp chats in an iTunes or iCloud backup -- and you can extract the messages you had stored on your iPhone or iPad.

Not sure what backups you have? Check here:

iTunes backups: if you didn’t enable iCloud backups on your device, iTunes backups are automatically created when you sync your iPhone with iTunes, and you should have one in your default backup folder. If you’re not sure whether you have an iTunes backup, iPhone Backup Extractor will be able to show you.

iCloud backup: to check if you have an iCloud backup, open Settings on your iPhone, and in the first menu, tap iCloud. At the bottom of the iCloud Drive screen you should see Backup - tap that. If iCloud backup is "on", then you'll see information about the date and time of the last backup. *Don't hit "backup now", as that will overwrite your current backup!

Don't click "Back up now" and overwrite your iCloud backup

Restoring an iCloud backup to your iPhone could cause data loss, as it will remove anything which was created subsequent to the backup being taken. We don’t recommend doing this if you're interested in retrieving only WhatsApp data, and not in restoring the phone to the state when the backup was taken.

Before starting, make sure your device will not overwrite your last backup. To do this, check that your device is not charging or connected via USB (iCloud backups can be updated and overwritten automatically if the device is connected to Wi-Fi, charging, and locked).

Step 2. Select the backup that contains your data

If using an iTunes backup

iPhone Backup Extractor will automatically check for backups located in your default backup folder. If your backup is located in a different location, select the folder by clicking the button "Add backups".

Adding an iTunes search folder to iPhone Backup Extractor

If using an iCloud backup

Click the "Add iCloud backups" text in the app's iPhone backup browser, on the left-hand side of the app, and then sign in to iCloud using the window that pops up. You'll need your iCloud username and password.

Sign in to iCloud

If multiple backups are available from iTunes or iCloud, select the one containing your WhatsApp messages from the list of backups shown on the left-hand side of the app. If you have an encrypted iTunes backup, you'll need to enter your backup password.

Step 3. Recover your WhatsApp messages with a click

With the iTunes or iCloud backup loaded into iPhone Backup Extractor, you'll be able to see the number of WhatsApp messages found in your backup in the ”Overview” section.

Recovering WhatsApp data with iPhone Backup Extractor

Click on the WhatsApp icon to extract your messages. iPhone Backup Extractor will ask you which format you’d like to get your data in, PDF, CSV or HTML (CSV option will save all your messages as text in a single file without any images, while HTML option will save them in separate files, allowing you to open them in a browser). We'd recommend you extract your data in PDF, as it's easiest to read anywhere.

Recovered WhatsApp messages

Then you’ll have to select the location where you want to export the files. Click OK and the folder with your messages will open. That's it!

Alternately, once your backup has been selected, you have 3 other ways to see your WhatsApp messages and attachments: "Preview", "Expert" or "App view" modes:

The "Preview" mode allows you to preview WhatsApp messages and their attachments. Click on "WhatsApp", and you will see a list of all possible messages that can be extracted in the right-hand side. Select messages with attachments, click on "Extract", and choose a location to save them. Messages are extracted as HTML, whilst images and videos are saved in a separate folder called "Data".

iPhone Backup Extractor's preview mode showing WhatsApp messages

In "App View" mode, select "WhatsApp Messenger" and click on the link next to "All Files". Then pick a location where you need to extract the attachments. You'll find your data in Library → Media folder.

Accessing WhatsApp backups directly

As well as saving your WhatsApp chats in an iTunes or iCloud backup, WhatsApp can also backup messages directly to iCloud when users have iCloud enabled.

This won't let you pick and choose which messages you recover: it's an all or nothing recovery that is built into WhatsApp itself, and which is best used when moving to a new iPhone, if WhatsApp messages weren't migrated with the usual iTunes backup and restore process.

You can access the WhatsApp chat archive inside the WhatsApp app itself:

Open WhatsApp, and tap Settings in the bottom right

Tap on Chat Settings, then Chats and Chat Backup

You'll see a screen that will tell you when the internal WhatsApp iCloud backup service is enabled.

In order to restore WhatsApp messages from this internal backup, the process can be a little scary. That's why we've led off this guide with a different approach. In order to restore from the internal backup, you'll need to:

Configure WhatsApp as you normally would, with the same phone number you used before

WhatsApp will ask whether you'd like to restore your chat history from iCloud; to proceed, tap Restore Chat History

⚠️

This last approach only works when using the same phone number and iCloud account, whereas the first approach in the guide can be used with different numbers and accounts.

Frequently asked questions

How can I access my WhatsApp `ChatStorage.sqlite` file?

You can access your ChatStorage.sqlite file using "Expert mode" as described in the steps above, and iPhone Backup Extractor enables you to get that file both from iTunes and iCloud backups. You can use this when migrating your data to Android. We publish a guide to getting ChatStorage here.

We were first to support encrypted backups, iCloud & 2FA. Corrupted backups, too!

Privacy, security and trust

We met HM Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ at Buckingham Palace, after Reincubate was awarded the UK’s highest business award for our work since 2008 on developing this technology. Reincubate invented iPhone Backup Extractor, the world's first iOS data recovery tool.

Help us improve

Can we improve this guide or make it easier for you or others access and recover their data? We’ve been doing this over a decade but there’s always room to improve, and we love hearing from users. Why not drop us an email, leave a comment, or tweet us @reincubate? 😊

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